Author: DREISER, Theodore
Title: Typed Letter Signed (Tls) on Writing Fiction
Description: New York, 21 February 1938. Letter. Superb two-page TYPED LETTER SIGNED (TLS) on personal letterhead to Michael Kowan regarding his doctoral thesis and giving "merely an offhand statement about my own attitude." In part: "I think creative writing has more to do with emotion than any other single factor. Generalized and intensified feeling for life is what is expressed. When a writer traces the course of a complete emotional cycle, what you might call a selected causal chain, one view of it, or whatever, he has his work laid out, and the name by which it is called, novel, short story, play or poem, or whatever, really comes after the fact. It is the amount of material which is involved in the feeling which determines the form of the work. When you ask what is fiction and what is the novel I must say that I think the question is useless. The only place where such questions come up are 'borderline cases' where personal opinion is, after all, the only criterion.. The process of construction is not as slow or as cold as you imply in your questions. The idea or emotion completes itself, builds itself up. I can't imagine myself ever sitting down and figuring out a plot without the characters, their emotions, environment, and the ensuing scenes all well visualized." The last three words quoted are inserted in Dreiser's hand. With the original envelope. Heavy creases from mailing. Very Good .

Keywords: Signed, Creative Writing, Literary Letters, Modern Firsts, Theodore Dreiser, Modern First Editions, Naturalism, Autographs Modern First Editions Literature: American Signed Creative Writing


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